Seven residents die of COVID-19 in past week as Thurston County adds 574 cases
Thurston County confirmed Monday seven residents died and 574 contracted COVID-19 in the past week.
Five men died due to COVID-19 — one in his 50s, two in their 60s, one in his 70s and another in his 80s — and two women in their 70s died. The cases and deaths were added between Oct. 25-31, according to data from Thurston County Public Health and Social Services.
There have been 20,641 confirmed cases and 216 deaths in the county from March 2020 to Sunday, per PHSS. The county considers 19,405 cases recovered or recovering as of Monday — meaning 1,236 cases remained active.
The county reported a lower-case count for the past week than it did for the previous week when there were 589 reported cases. The weekly case count has not surpassed 700 for the past five weeks.
The county’s two-week case rate increased to 426.8 cases per 100,000 people between Oct. 10-23 after reaching 403.4 from Oct. 4-17, per data from the state Department of Health. The record high case rate in Thurston County was 523.4 from Aug. 19 to Sept. 1, the data show.
“We’re watching cautiously as we’ve seen our case (rates) slowly, slowly uptick,” Health Officer Dimyana Abdelmalek said during a Tuesday morning Board of County Commissioners meeting. With the arrival of colder weather, she called on residents to continue following guidelines.
“Especially as we’re going into winter, masking, distancing, staying home when sick and getting tested are absolutely critical to bringing our case rate down,” Abdelmalek said.
Regarding outbreaks, the county reports it’s responding to 13 ongoing outbreaks at congregate care settings. To date, there have been 97 such outbreaks.
Additionally, PHSS reported one outbreak involving three cases at a Tumwater School District setting last week. No other districts or private schools have had outbreaks, defined as three or more cases, requiring closures over the past three weeks, per PHSS.
Seven people were hospitalized with a confirmed case of COVID-19 over the past week, per PHSS. Since the start of the pandemic, the data show 1,309 people with COVID-19 have at some point been hospitalized.
The state reports the county had a hospitalization rate of 12.7 per 100,000 people between Oct. 17-23. This rate is down from a recent high of 18.2 which was recorded from Sept. 18-24.
About 81% of Thurston County’s hospital surge capacity areas are occupied, Abdelmalek said Tuesday. She said 32 COVID-19 patients were ventilators.
As of Sunday, about 88.8% of intensive care unit beds over a seven-day period were occupied in the West region, which includes Thurston County and some of its neighbors. The data show 32.6% of ICU beds were occupied by COVID-19 patients in the region.
Hospitals in the region were 91.4% full over a seven-day period as of Sunday, per the data, while COVID-19 patients accounted for 17.6%.
From Feb. 1 to Sept. 28, state data show 78% of cases (8,047) in Thurston County were in unvaccinated individuals. Meanwhile, 16.8% of cases (990) were in fully vaccinated individuals, per the data.
PHSS does not share the vaccination status of those who die due to COVID-19 because they do not have access to that data, a county spokesperson previously said.
Vaccinations and tests
Just 57.9% of all Thurston residents were fully vaccinated as of Saturday and 62.5% had initiated vaccinations, per state data. The county’s vaccination rate increased by less than a single-digit percentage point over the past week.
State data indicates 74.1% of Thurston residents 16 and older have initiated vaccinations and 68.7% have been fully vaccinated.
As of Oct. 25, 78.6% of the state population 12 and older had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 72.5% had been fully vaccinated. This percentage includes aggregate data from the Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs, both of which are not entirely reflected in the state’s data dashboard.
For comparison, 72.8% of Thurston County residents 12 and older have initiated vaccinations and 67.4% had been fully vaccinated as of Oct. 30.
Thurston County PHSS continues to offer free vaccination events every week. Events are listed on their coronavirus vaccine information website.
Abdelmalek said PHSS administered 1,389 doses COVID-19 vaccines at its location at Capital Mall over the past week.
Residents also can find appointments at local providers such as pharmacies by visiting the state’s Vaccine Locator website. Many supermarket pharmacies are taking walk-ins for vaccines.
Those who have difficulty scheduling appointments online can call the Department of Health vaccine hotline at 888-856-5816 or the Thurston County Public Health and Social Services line at 360-867-2610. Information for Spanish speakers is available at these numbers as well.
There have been no updates to COVID-19 testing data since Sept. 15. PHSS says the state Department of Health paused this data release to increase capacity so it can process an increasing number of tests.
The DOH does not expect to restart its reporting of testing data until about Nov. 30, according to its data dashboard.
PHSS offers testing at various locations throughout the county, but this is limited to people with symptoms or who may have been exposed by a close contact.
People also can get tested at pharmacies such as Rite Aid and Walgreens, but appointments may be limited. Over-the- counter COVID-19 antigen tests also are available at pharmacies.
In the region
▪ Pierce County had confirmed 91,021 total COVID-19 cases with 849 deaths as of Monday.
▪ Grays Harbor County has seen a total of 8,764 confirmed and probable cases, with 131 deaths as of Sunday, according to state data.
▪ Lewis County has had a total of 10,133 confirmed and probable cases with 154 deaths as of Sunday, per state data.
▪ Mason County has reported 4,920 confirmed cases with 68 deaths as of Monday.
In the state, nation and world
The state of Washington has reported a total of 730,108 COVID-19 cases and 8,659 deaths from the beginning of the pandemic to Sunday.
As of Oct. 15, the state estimated its effective reproductive number over time was 1.01 on Oct. 9, indicating the number of infected people may have been slowly increasing, the data show. This metric measures the average number of new people that one COVID-19 positive person infects.
In the U.S., nearly 46.1 million COVID-19 cases had been reported as of Tuesday with more than 747,200 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Globally, about 247.3 million people had contracted the virus and over 5 million people had died of COVID-19 as of Tuesday, the data show.
This story was originally published November 2, 2021 at 2:20 PM.
